


Tied Together

by starksnack



Series: Stony Week 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Avengers Tower, Identity Porn, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Red String of Fate, Soulmates, The Avengers (2012) Spoilers, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 23:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19161310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksnack/pseuds/starksnack
Summary: Tony has been waiting for his thread to disappear. For his soulmate to finally come into his life. Of course, it happens sometime during the mess with Loki and the Chitauri.





	Tied Together

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, this fic is kind of a mess because I wrote it in one go right before bed. Sorry if it makes no sense. Also, no beta cause we die like men. I hope you guys are having a good day!  
> \- Kait <3

Tony played with the red string tied into a tiny bow around his fourth finger, a precursor to the wedding ring that would sit there someday if all went according to fate’s grand plan. Everyone got a little red thread that only they could see, a cord that tied them to their soulmate across space, time, and the ephemeral fabric of the vast universe.

He ran his thumb over his finger meeting skin where the thread was tied to him. The string would only disappear when Tony found his soulmate so, for now, it was a reminder of the happiness that was to come. When Tony was younger, he used to think it was silly. Afghanistan had changed that, the thread becoming something to live for.

With a deep sigh, Tony settled into his new penthouse. Stark Tower was now a beacon of clean energy. It was a major environmental success and Tony couldn’t help the pride he felt at being the first name in renewable, clean energy. He just wished he had someone to share it with.

That’s when the phone rang, Agent’s name flashing across the screen.

***

It was a crazy and hectic week, from learning thermonuclear astrophysics to battling Loki’s angst and his army of alien misfits all while keeping his identity a secret. He gritted his teeth as he touched down on the tower landing pad. Meeting Steve Rogers was both the highlight and the lowest point of this whole endeavor. It was great to finally meet the subject of his childhood wet dreams, but his delight was eclipsed by memories of his father who always compared him to the great and powerful Captain America. This didn’t even mention the fact that Rogers hated him. A recipe for big fucking yikes.

On the bright side, it hadn’t taken much convincing to get the Avengers to move into the tower. They had all been the for the giant wormhole that opened up above the city and apparently that had been enough to get them to each claim a floor in Stark Tower.

When things finally settled down, Tony got back into the workshop and stepped out of his suit. His heart stuttered to a halt in his chest. The string around his finger was gone. He stared at his left hand, willing his vision to shift the red thread back in place around his fourth finger but nothing changed. Somewhere in the last week, he had met his soulmate, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Tony sat down in his chair, hard, blinking away the wetness in his eyes. There was no use crying over spilled milk. He had been so focused on trading quips with Rogers and battling an emo demigod that he had missed the most important moment of his life.

He shook his head, rattling his marbled back into place. He needed to get a grip before Dum-E hit him with a rolled up tabloid and beeped at him to pull himself together. He was Tony Stark. If he could build the Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of scraps, he could find his soulmate.

“Jarvis, you up?” anxiety colored his words and he kissed his teeth as his desktop booted up. The Stark Industries logo flashed across the glass and Tony’s fingers beat an impatient rhythm across the metal casing of the arc reactor.

“Always,” Jarvis responded, the holograms throwing blue light across Tony’s features. The glow wrapped Tony in a bright cocoon and he relaxed. It would be okay, Jarvis would help. “How can I be of assistance?”

“I need a record of everyone I met this last week and whether or not they have registered soulmates. I’m looking for anyone whose thread disappeared. Scan social media postings and soulmate announcement feeds.” Tony splayed his hands out, looking through the generated lists to see if there was a face he recognized. Someone with whom he had made eye contact and formed a bond. So far, no dice. He frowned, “Sort by the likelihood of being my soulmate.”

Jarvis pulled up the feed from the armor running facial recognition while pulling up a guest list from the event in Germany and a roster of all the Shield agents on the Helicarrier this past week. With the hundreds of names crossing his screen, Tony felt his eyes glaze over, hopelessness pulling at the back of his skull and swelling into a headache.

A knock on his workshop door drew him out of his thoughts and he turned to find Rogers standing on the other side, shifting from foot to foot. He was dressed in civvies, a dreadful looking button-down tucked into khakis.

Tony waved him in, turning back to his project. A small list was forming and it looked fairly promising. It was still a lot of names to sort through.

Rogers cleared his throat pointedly. “Can I speak to Iron Man?”

Tony frowned casting a glance at the suit in the corner. There was no way he could play off someone being asleep in there. “He just left for the day but I can take a message.”

“He left?” Rogers raised his brows incredulously, “I thought all the Avengers were staying in the tower. What if there’s an emergency and we need air support?”

“I gave him the suitcase armor to take with him while I repair this one. There’s no need to get your panties in a twist.” Tony rolled his eyes, turning back to his screen, He nearly let out a frustrated groan when he found the list had doubled in size. Significantly less promising. He needed time to think without the big blond distraction hovering behind him. “Is there anything else you needed?”

“No thanks, I’ll just talk to Iron Man when he comes back.” Tony nodded, expecting him to turn around and leave. Instead, Rogers just followed with another pointed throat clearing and Tony resisted the urge to throw the nearest tool, a socket wrench it appeared, at his head. He whirled around in his seat and bit out an irritated, “Yes?”

“I just wanted to apologize for what I said on the helicarrier,” Rogers twisted his fingers in front of him, mouth screwed up in distaste. “It wasn’t right of me, I really appreciate you letting us into your home, and giving us Iron Man.”

Tony nodded, “I didn’t mean what I said either.” He turned back to his list, eyes nearly popping out of his head as he found hundreds of names filling up the screen. “I have a really important experiment running, can you excuse me?”

“Of course,” Tony didn’t need to turn around to know that Rogers was nodding earnestly at him. “The team is going to go out for pizza later, I would love it if you joined us.”

Tony thought about it a moment. If this whole list turned out to be a bust, comfort food would probably be his best bet so he could eat his sorrows away. Tony squeezed his eyes shut, willing the list to get smaller. “Sure, I’ll be there.”

***

Tony never did figure out who his soulmate was. He did get a laugh at some of the names on the list though. Taylor Swift and Elon Musk were apparently candidates, though Tony dismissed those quickly. The biggest laugh was Rogers though, Jarvis thought he was most likely to be Tony’s soulmate but that was pretty much impossible considering Rogers didn’t really like him. Sure, he included Tony in all their group outings and they were friendly, but seeing how Rogers interacted with Iron Man, the ease in their partnership on the battlefield and the relaxed line of his shoulders when they spoke, something he never did with Tony, proved that Rogers didn’t think of him as soulmate material.

One whole year had come and gone and Tony still couldn’t look at the fourth finger of his left hand with anything but longing. Somewhere, someone else was suffering the same despair of an unknown bond and there was nothing that upset Tony more.

And then Rogers had to go and ask Iron Man out.

They were just finishing up a joint training exercise, working seamlessly to take out the targets Tony had painstakingly created when Rogers approached, a broad grin on his face as he pushed his sweat-soaked bangs off his forehead. “Heya Shellhead.”

“Hey Winghead,” Tony responded fiddling with a loose plate on the armor. This one needed a tune-up anyway, he might as well just design a new suit. “Good training session.”

“Yeah,” Rogers replied, shifting from foot to foot in a way that Tony knew meant he was nervous. “I worked up quite the appetite and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go and grab a bite, just the two of us?” Rogers trailed off, eyes trained on his red leather boots.

“Uhm,” Tony frowned. “I’m not really feeling like a smoothie right now,” he pointed to the faceplate to indicate that he couldn’t really put food in his mouth. “So, that’s going to have to be a no.”

“Oh,” Rogers nodded dumbly, the beginnings of a frown pulling his brows together. “I’m sorry, maybe  I was just reading into things.” Rogers scrubbed at the back of his neck with his hand, a blush spreading furiously across his cheeks. “I really like you and I was wondering if you liked me back.”

Tony’s heart hurt because of course Rogers had to go and fall in love with Iron Man when he hated Tony.

“I really don’t think that’s the best idea,” Tony responded, standing up in one fluid motion and forcing Rogers to take a step back. “There’s the whole issue of my secret identity and the Avengers and don’t we have a policy against fraternization-”

“Iron Man,” Rogers cut him off, stepping forward so that they’re face to face. “I don’t care who you are behind the mask, I love you.”

And then Steve’s hands were on either side of his face, pressing a kiss to the slit of the mask. His eyes were open, as though he could see through the glass of the faceplate, gaze heavy with desire. Tony could see every stroke of blue in his eyes, the perfect slash of green and the long flutter of his blond lashes when his eyes finally slid shut.

Steve pulled away, breathing heavily. “I think you’re my soulmate.”

Tony was out of the gym in under ten seconds.

***

When Steve showed up to the workshop the next day, looking totally miserable, Tony almost felt bad for him. And then annoyance overcame him when he remembered that somehow Steve had gotten it into his head that they were soulmates. Well, not them. Him and Iron Man. Tony didn’t know what was worse.

“Hey,” Steve mumbled. There was a giant wicker basket cradled in his arms, the smell of Tony’s favorite muffins, blueberry, wafting up from underneath a red napkin. “Can you give this to Iron Man.”

Tony resisted the urge to just accept the basket and cram the muffins into his mouth while watching reruns of the Bachelor. “He’s not going to be back for the while, the muffins will go bad, just drop them off at the homeless shelter on the corner.”

Steve’s lower lip wobbled and he looked a second away from crying before he nodded, backing out of Tony’s workshop and to the elevator.

Tony tried not to feel bad.

He felt bad anyway.

***

It was a fight that revealed Iron Man’s identity to the world.

Everything started out fine and dandy, some angsty teens had gotten ahold of some Chitauri tech and built robots that were wreaking havoc at a bowling alley downtown until it got out of hand and spilled out onto the street. Some civilians, a bowling team it seemed by the garish matching shirts, were chucking bowling balls at the robots. Tony learned the hard way that when the robots exploded, they spewed acid that kind of melted through metal. And then one exploded in his face.

His first instinct was to protect the reactor. He didn’t know how the metal casing would react to the acid and the last thing he needed was to go into cardiac arrest during the fight when the rest of the team didn’t even know that the same reactor that powered the suit also powered his heart. He didn’t even notice the faceplate had melted away until he felt the cool heat of the midday sun on his face.

Tony took out the rest of the robots with an extreme vengeance before dropping down by Clint to give him a lift to where the rest of the team was gathering in the street.

“Oh my god, Tony?” Steve’s jaw dropped and then he was cupping Tony’s face, eyes wide as his fingers ran over where the acid had singed his skin. Tony waited with bated breath for the insults, fully expecting to be kicked off the scene. He least expected Steve to pull him into a hug asking if he was alright.

“‘M fine,” Tony mumbled back, the words muffled in the kevlar of Steve’s suit. He pulled away turning to the other Avengers but none of them looked ready to tear into him. Instead, there were encouraging smiles all around.

Tony’s suit was still flight-capable, but he chose to ride back with the other Avengers, still shocked that no one was telling him he was unworthy to be Iron Man. He was sitting closer to the back of the quinjet, thinking about how he would handle being kicked off the team when Steve sat beside him.

“Hey so. I know we got off on the wrong foot,” Steve started a bashful smile s spreading across his face, “but I woke up in this new century wondering if I would ever find my soulmate and the night we met in Germany, my string faded away.”

“Oh,” Tony said intelligently, the pieces falling into place in his mind. Maybe Jarvis was right and they were actually soulmates. Who would have thought?

“Yeah,” Steve laughed, a rich beautiful sound falling from his lips. “Anyway, now that there isn’t a faceplate in the way, I was wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner? The two of us, on a date?”

Tony finally allowed himself to think that maybe, the team was okay with him being Iron Man and Steve was possibly his soulmate. He grinned up at Steve, brown eyes lit up.

“I would love that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://starksnack.tumblr.com/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/starksnack/).


End file.
